


Fallen Heroes

by EbonyAura



Series: The Adventures of the Knight and the Gladiator [4]
Category: Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers: Prime
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Dimension Travel, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Eventual Smut, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, References to Depression, Shame, Suicidal Thoughts, Tactile Sexual Interfacing, continuity crossover, mentions of a knight's code of honor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:26:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26408686
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EbonyAura/pseuds/EbonyAura
Summary: Megatron knows days like these are the worst; when he sees the shadow of the same monster which once overtook him lingering in Optimus Prime.That is why in the nights that follow, he will do whatever he must to help the knight forget.
Relationships: Megatron/Optimus Prime
Series: The Adventures of the Knight and the Gladiator [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1665187
Comments: 6
Kudos: 46





	1. A Crimson View

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, just some quick notes before you dive in:   
> 1) This work is part 4 of "The Adventures of the Knight and The Gladiator" series. If you know that and have already read the previous fics, cool :) just know that this one takes chronologically takes place in between parts 2 and 3. IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE PREVIOUS FICS, that's cool too, long story short Bayverse OP and all the surviving bots from his universe wound up in the TFP universe, TFP Megatron fell helm over peds for OP (HE COULDN'T HELP HIMSELF OK), and they've been in a courting partnership for a couple months now. If you're still confused, I recommend going back and reading the other fics.  
> 2) Heads up in advance! This fic will give you the sad feels and touches on some serious topics (then again almost all my fics do WHY AM I AN EMOTIONAL WRITER) such as severe depression and suicidal thoughts. You've been warned.   
> 3) Heads up in advance! This fic also has EXPLICIT SMUT in it. You've been warned.   
> 4) I owe thanks to FellowRobophilia for reading this in advance and for helping me come up with the idea! Also,   
> HAPPY BIRTHDAY YOU GREMLIN YOU ARE AMAZING!!! <3  
> 5) Side note to American readers: Yes, I know what this title may imply given the significance of the day it's being posted. I'm not attempting to allude to 9/11 in any way here, but I do have utmost respect for those who were lost during the event. 
> 
> Okay I'm done. Enjoy the mess.

Four million years of war have taught him to examine ped steps like data. Measure their intensity, listen to their gait, pick out abnormalities. Know if who’s approaching will be the one to kill you.

Megatron hears each ped step drawing near their home and notices the way they drag over the ground. He already knows who it is.

It’s no exaggerated action on the owner’s part. Not done to attract attention or to remove debris from the seams and catches between armor. Rather it feels subconscious, each heel of two peds scuffing over the ground for a moment too long before skimming forward.

They continue this pattern up the three steps that leads to the door. His analyzation of the mech comes to an abrupt halt when he hears the hiss of released air pressure. The door has opened and the Prime only enters just before the pause becomes hesitant.

The sound of slow peds is joined by the quiet scratch of a blade trailing over the ground. The door hisses shut.

He looks up from the scouting reports he’d been reading, his gaze sliding back towards the door. The visage of the foreign Prime, once from another universe and now here to forever remain, stands near him. Flames crest over his chest plates and creep over his forearms, reflecting the evening sun. They are the only source of vibrancy that emanates from this mech.

Their optics meet, and troubled crimson meets hollow blue.

Megatron sets down the datapad in his servos, pulling away from the seat in their living space to cautiously advance. The knight does not respond, his exhaustion so palpable it brings his magnetic field to pool over the ground. Dull blue optics watch his progress with an unnerving blankness. He feels his spark dim in its casing.

He stops, leaving an arm’s length between them should the other want to back away. For a long few kliks, they simply stand where they are. Nothing physical emanates from either of them. But the silence lingering between is filled with conversation.

It’s not conducted through words. Not through comms or code. None of it belongs in the space they seek to fill. Instead, they connect through gaze, through minute shifts of their frames, through the storm that Megatron feels gathering around his partner.

Within these minute expressions from an otherwise outspoken and unshakable Prime, he is told of the day’s events which have beaten this knight into the gray, crumbling statue which teeters before him.

Slowly, carefully, the Decepticon reaches out to let his silver claws settle over the other’s servo. It’s fisted stiffly over the elegant longsword that taps the ground at their side. He does not break their gaze, but he slides those claws between the other’s digits to loosen their grip. It does not happen at first, not when the fist tenses at the first touch.

He is patient, he understands the Prime’s reaction.

His thumb slips under his partner’s servo-guard and the tip of his claw rubs at the wiring and joints within. From there, it takes a few kliks longer. When the longsword at last clatters to the ground, it gleams no reaction from either of them. Megatron feels his partner’s servo automatically grip onto his.

Hollow blue optics flash just a little bit brighter.

And then they dim in relief.

Megatron waits for Optimus to step forward into his waiting arms. When he does, it’s less of a stride than a shuffle, a reserved plea and a tentative question. The Decepticon does not move as his partner leans into his frame. He lifts his other arm to cradle his partner’s back. The knight hides his faceplates in the crook of his shoulder pauldron.

He does not argue when the Prime cannot lift his arms to reciprocate. He does not speak after Optimus’s frame begins to tremble.

Megatron’s field weaves into the lethargic electromagnetic energy of his partner and picks it up off the ground. He strokes at the small of his partner’s back plating. Crimson optics offline as he leans in and lets his face slide over the back of the blue helm.

_There is a pain that stems from every strut and piece of metal that makes up Optimus Prime; a deep, logic-defying desolation pulsing like a parasitic spark. Every ventilation is agony._

Without thinking Megatron presses a shallow kiss to his partner’s head. There’s no reaction to it. He presses another to his audial and from it comes a light twitch. He presses another to the back of his long helm crest and does not miss when his partner tilts his helm just so much into the sensation. He presses light kisses anywhere he can reach; each touch a slow progression and an offering of comfort.

_Megatron knows pain, knows desolation, understands what it’s like to shut the door after leading a defeated army and swaying on unsteady peds._

A sigh startles the quiet atmosphere of the room. It’s the first vocalized sound between them since the morning when they parted to undertake their daily tasks of leadership. Megatron stops, pulls away and coaxes Optimus out of hiding. A shadow lingers in the corners of blue optics. It slides over the dull silver of his facial plating, following the grooves and angles which shape him.

_He looks into the optics which have become his guiding light and is met with the reflection of another fallen hero._

The sight jabs at his spark like a blade and twists. It’s almost enough to bring him to his knees.

For now he remains standing, locks his knee joints and pulls the knight back in. Optimus does not resist, only moves his helm out of the way when the Decepticon dips his faceplate into the crevice between his collar guard and neck cables. There is a nanosecond’s pause before the rumble of flight engines fills the room and he kisses at those cables.

Optimus sighs again, gathering the remnants of his strength to grasp at a silver arm. The ex-warlord wisely does not react to this, delving deeper into his own exploration of the vulnerable spot he’s chosen.

_Megatron knows days like these are the worst._

_When Optimus returns to their home ragged and shambled from every duty their peoples saw fit to shove upon him. When the dinobots do not return to their small settlement, leaving the Prime to watch the horizon long into the night and wonder if the ancient warriors have finally perished. When the surviving Decepticons of his universe cast dubious optics upon him, analyzing his every move, questioning every decision._

_When the knight remembers everything. Every death, every battle, every destroyed world, every loss in fine-tuned detail. When the grief is so heavy Optimus Prime can’t even lift his own helm. When the pain is so deep, he goes numb to anything Megatron might say or do. When the doubts and regret swarm the knight until he no longer remembers his code of honor._

_When he wonders why death can’t be a better alternative to what he’ll have to endure tomorrow_.

Sharp denta grazes over cables as the ex-warlord’s kisses morph into tastes. His mouth lingers longer; his glossa sneaks out to glide over the vital components of the Prime’s neck. He finds a familiar tender spot and bites down, his engines rolling into something like a growl. The cables do not withstand against him when he closes his jaw, his denta sinking in and drawing vital fluids that trickle over his glossa. Blunt digits that cling to him curl inward at the sting, shaking with sapped energy.

_This is no solution, merely a distraction_.

A sudden pressure on his chest startles him from his exploration. The Decepticon moves back instantly, respectful of the boundaries which sometimes must stand between them. But any barrier that once stood is shattered when Optimus crashes their lip plates together, frenzied and desperate and so exhausted he’s blazing. Megatron stumbles backward a step but does not fall, responding with an equivalent passion that’s frantic and reckless.

_But they need it._

Their servos wander and scratch at every catch in each other’s armor. Every one of their inhalations becomes louder and heavier by the nanosecond. Steam shoots out of Optimus’s smokestacks. The ex-warlord’s unwinding logic threads make one last decision, and in the next klik he pulls at Optimus to follow. They stumble down the hall into their berthroom and he slams the door.

_Megatron knows days like these are the worst; when he sees the shadow of the same monster which once overtook him lingering in Optimus Prime._

_The knight cannot bear it, and neither can he._

_That is why in the nights that follow, he will do whatever he must to help the knight forget._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've realized way too late that I have this strange obsession with torturing any Optimus I write about and I'm not sure what to do about it.


	2. A Cerulean View

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what? 
> 
> SMUT

The door slams shut. Solitude locks it and desperation guides them away from it.

Where cold had settled under protoform, Optimus now felt the physical heat that was beginning to build and seep outward. It warped the air around them, swiping away reality and setting him into something like a dream. Nothing existed here; no parallel universes, no death tolls, no wars and no deceitful aliens from other planets. Nothing except the gladiator who’d stepped into this dark, quiet place with him and lit it with a crimson glow.

The claws that dragged and curled into his seams shocked the sensitive neural sensors he kept hidden under clamped armor. Raw pleasure flowed towards his pulsing spark, revolved around it and was pushed back out to every component of his frame. He shuddered hard at the flood of sensation, trying to absorb it all at once but feeling his knees bend and quiver.

Megatron’s field curls around him, holding him up with a strength of its own. He already knows his partner is on the brink of collapse and turns to guide him towards the berth in the middle of the room. The knight clings to the gladiator as they move once more, walking like a colt on gangly limbs and knobby joints. It’s _degrading_ , it’s _weak_ , and he tenses at the invading thought of what his survivors might say if they knew their Prime were in such a state.

The thought shatters like thin ice over a river when Megatron comes back with a piercing kiss.

Optimus attempts to reciprocate what he feels back onto his partner. He grasps at the spikes of the other’s shoulder pauldrons and bites back. He tangles their glossas together and lets the second appendage that brushes along his denta fill his neural net with more sensation. The ache that’s wrapped itself around his spark names itself as _want_ and drops like a stone, all the way to the area behind panels, and he whines. The sound bleeds into the room and dances on the shimmering waves of heat around them. His partner answers it with a groan, long and low, that emanates from the depths of his chest.

They make it to berth just before the knight loses the capability to stand. That’s the point Megatron decides to wrap both arm struts securely around his waist and lift him off the ground, swinging around to push him to the head of the berth in the span of a nanosecond. On any other occasion, Optimus would’ve abhorred this kind of treatment. He was no meek drone; he did not need special treatment or to be carried around like he was disabled. If it were any other night, he would’ve already pushed the gladiator into the thermal blankets and ravaged him.

But tonight, his strength wanes. His limbs will not hold any longer against a foe they can’t even grasp. Tonight, Optimus lays down his arms and allows the ex-warlord to overtake him.

And overtake him, he does. Sharp denta and glossa leave no inch of his frame untouched when Megatron finds his place over top of him. He licks and laves the painted flames, dips over every curve and scrapes every edge. He worships the mechanisms that are folded into place under the Prime’s chest, pressing open-mouthed kisses in every crevice he can reach. His servos roam without direction, rubbing into the areas where protoform is in closest reach. Optimus’s every ventilation is heavy, his chest jolting and quaking as if in tandem with the cycling air.

Optimus needs this, craves it like energon. It overwhelms him and yet it just isn’t enough.

The knight tips his helm forward and looks down with hazy, dim optics. Megatron meets his gaze for a moment, hungry crimson clashing with impatient cerulean, the only signal that’s needed for the gladiator to pick up his pace. Like an enormous predator, his entire body bends and bows with ease as he shifts himself toward the panels of his partner which seep the most heat. Optimus feels those long silver claws wrap around his thighs to pull them apart and watches Megatron duck in between them.

He knows what’s coming and welcomes it without a second thought, scarcely retracting his panels before his partner takes what is offered. Optimus gasps and exhales loudly when Megatron’s glossa first wraps itself around his spike, swirling around the end before stroking up and down its length. It twitches under the ministrations, his arousal emerging into the fluids that drip from its tip. But the ache he feels goes _deeper_ , the emptiness within is _barely_ touched. He whines again and pushes his hips against his partner’s faceplates.

_Please,_ his field cries without voice. _Please…_

His plea is answered when Megatron nuzzles past his spike; finding his anterior node, pushing his glossa onward and _oh_ …

_There. He’s found it_.

His valve lips flutter around the wet intruding appendage, taking it in and kneading on it like dough. Optimus’s moan echoes around them as his helm falls back, hitting the berth surface with a small thunk. Megatron groans back, shifting each of his legs to rest in between the two outermost spikes of his shoulder pauldrons and freeing his servos. One of reaches up and around his leg to press down on his pelvis, keeping him still; the other crawling up to message at his anterior node. The glossa within explores him with a slow but concentrated thoroughness, digging deeper and deeper into that tight passageway.

Optimus blindly grasps at the pillows above his helm to stabilize himself as he loses control of his vocalizer, bleating whimpers and sighs in between harsh static. Within his tanks, he feels the warmth that started in his external sensors turn inward and build into a ball of heat, coiling tighter and tighter as each nanosecond passes by. It’s overpowering, a force that takes him by storm in the best way he’s ever felt possible. It begins to crush the dark hollow pit that had followed him here from his own universe. It’s _more_ than desire, _more_ than affection, it’s—

The incredible sensations in his valve abruptly cease when the glossa retreats, followed by two digits he hadn’t realized had joined it.

But there is no time to mourn their loss when his legs are hiked upward and Megatron’s engorged spike swiftly replaces them.

This time he shouts, his entire frame going rigid at the uncomfortable stretch his valve endures. His partner stills, vents pouring out heat and shoulders trembling, and reaches up to stroke over Optimus’s sides. Megatron rumbles, the sound reminiscent of his flight engines, and the knight lets it sweep over him. Their fields tangle and grasp onto each other in the onslaught of sensations that threatens to drown them. Optimus blindly presses his helm upward, searching, and the gladiator meets him in the middle, capturing another kiss. He relaxes, and only then does Megatron begin to move.

The ex-warlord starts in slow, shallow thrusts, brushing against abused nodes and stretching the valve walls that gave way. Optimus’s vents hitch with each push and turn to begging whimpers when the build of charge in his systems becomes torturous. He nips at his partner’s lip plates, grinds his hips up against the other, tightens the grip of his legs in Megatron’s shoulder spikes. He opens his optics, looks up at the gladiator and chokes on the sob that threatens to escape him.

Megatron will never know how much he wants to be filled. How much he wants the warmth to swallow him whole and take away the cold. How much he wants the hollowness to be gone, wants to eradicate the black hole that drains the light from his spark.

How much he wants to feel _more_ than pain… anger… misery… this all-consuming _nothing_ …

His legs are suddenly grabbed with force and thrown far enough upward to slam his knees against his chest plates. It’s a position that allows Megatron to not only press him deep into the berth, but to hit _hard_ against the ceiling nodes in Optimus’s valve.

_… Or perhaps he does._

The storm once again engulfs him, and he feels more than he hears the thunderous roar of both their flight engines working at full capacity. Optimus _screams_ , powerless at this point to do anything but let himself take in and feel what he’s given. Each thrust digs a little deeper than the last and strikes like lighting, leaving behind an ignition of all-consuming emotion, of passion, of perception, and of _life_ that he can’t ventilate.

_Life_ … He knows what it’s like to live in the heat of battle, to feel fire ignite into his limbs and pulse power through his spark. He knows what it’s like to live each moment as thought they were his last. He knows the morbidity of feeling most alive after he’s left another soldier dead. But this… this is a blaze that burns hotter than anything he’d ever felt in war. It’s a power that stands above taking lives, of winning fights and battles, above even the anger and the nothingness that follows…

_It’s a connection_.

_It’s understanding, trust, and devotion._

_It’s a reassurance that he is not alone._

The realization hits him at the same time the gladiator finds where his valve ends and his gestation chamber begins, penetrating through and raising his charge to a height he could scarcely comprehend. Whether or not he screamed again is a mystery he doesn’t care to investigate. All he can register is his partner pounding him into the berth _over and over again_ , along with the endless loop of pleasure it creates that rids him nearly of all senses. Was he up or down? Still on the berth or on the floor? How much longer did they have before the heat coiling in their bellies snapped and released the molten lava that burned at their insides?

They chased their breaking points in the reality painted by shimmering walls and doused in all-embracing warmth, existing within it for forever. And yet for only a moment.

Megatron was the first to succumb to the implosion of overload, his thrusts becoming erratic before ceasing all together. With a muted hiss he tipped over the edge, half-collapsing on top of the knight before catching himself on one shaky arm strut. Optimus then felt the hot essence of the gladiator pour into his gestation chamber, filling that place deep inside that had once been hollow. He followed shortly after, and like Megatron he came quietly, keening softly as his own transfluid spilled over their pelvises and valve lubricants dripped onto the berth.

Heat and steam shimmered around them both like smoke in the wake of a great fire. Trembles traveled through both of their frames and their vents heaved long, relieved sighs. Neither of them moved for a few kliks, regaining their ventilation cycles as well as their sense of self. But then Megatron lifted his helm from where it’d fallen on the Prime’s chest plates. The movement caused Optimus to startle, lifting his own helm from where it fell back against the berth. He was met with red optics, glimmering in a note of worry and asking a silent question.

His lip plates curled up in an almost imperceptible grin. He drew in another deep vent, feeling the warmth of the fluids in his gestation chamber spread a comfortable warmth to every part of him. For now, the dark and emptiness which followed his every step was gone. It would come back, he knew, with every drip of warm fluid that trickled out of him he knew it was one step closer to returning. But here, in this moment and in this reality they called their own, he was willing to forget about that for a while.

Optimus crooned, a gentle sound so rare from him even Bumblebee had never heard it, and let his servos come down from where they’d fallen above his helm. Megatron caught them and they pulled him up, bringing both leaders to be optic-level with each other. They shared a gaze of contentment; of trust, affection and an emotion neither of them were yet willing to admit before Megatron huffed in satisfaction and leaned back down, curling up half beside and half on top of the flame-decaled Prime. Optimus watched in detached amusement as his partner nuzzled into his neck guard with a gruff purr, only hesitating once before wrapping his arms around the other and settling back for a few kliks of rest.

_Yes, tonight, he could forget_.


End file.
